#something something JONAH PARALLELS

[bajablastflavoredsaxreed]

ok alice’s parents’ deaths DEFINITELY weren’t natural

[franzsiska]

thinking about how both jonah and elias are names of biblical prophets. hmmmm

[tracksdowna]

i had an idea about dallas' e20 shit and i've done actual psychic damage to myself guys send help

[thecorruption-thespiralsversion]

TMP Stream Of Consciousness Theory

(Like, I'm forming it and I'm not sure where I'm headed here)

Spoilers All - TMP

So as I'm reading through a lot of Lena Post on here it's starting to strick at me. Her wording when she vaguely explained things to Gwen in EP 13, Futures.

Gwen asks if they're the bad guys.

Lena hesitates before answering "We are... Managing, the bad guys."

Unlike the The Magnus Institute they aren't collecting Statements, they're keeping track of them.

Lena doesn't see herself and her work as good, but a necessary evil.

This would make Lena NOT Jonah's Parallel, but Gertrude's.

To Gertrude, Michael was a necessary evil, but she hurt no more people than absolutely necessary.

Lena isn't willing to put her employees in unnecessary risk.

The Magnus Institute was destroyed and OIAR has something called The Magnus Protocol.

They're preventing the Dread Powers from taking hold. Be it Fear, Hunger, or Regret. They're making sure no one of them gets a real foothold into our world. And if one gets to close. Well, they have their last resort.

The Magnus Protocol

Non Vacillabimus

We Will Not Falter

[lover-of-mine]

Welcome to Anna writes another color meta because she's losing her mind.

I made half this point before, but season 7 has more evidence, so I'm gonna make it again, just stay with me. Buck wears a lot of red, right? Staple color for him.

And, well, the coma dream has many elements that make it uncomfortable even if we don't fully realize it, one of them is the way that Buck is wearing green.

(something else is the way he's wearing black vans when he usually wears white hightops, but that's not important right now, but 911 costume department, I worship you)

Why is the green part relevant? Well, red and green are complementary colors, that means they are on opposite sides of the color wheel, and the whole thing with complementary colors is to create contrast. So, since he's usually on this part of the color wheel, the green stands out, even if we don't fully register why.

But the thing is, they put Buck in green when something is wrong. The coma dream, yeah, but the talk with Ali that leads to the breakup, the whole thing with taking Red to see Cindy that completely backfires, and subsequently the conversation with Maddie about being the one who gets left behind, telling Taylor he cheated, talking to Eddie about how he's avoiding Taylor after the Jonah thing, breaking up with Taylor, the cemetery scene, the gym scene in 705.

Those are all scenes where something is wrong, Ali doesn't understand who he is, the whole thing with Red is Buck deciding to do the wrong thing over his idea of what Red needs, the Taylor arc is very self-explanatory, the cemetery feels like he's trying to convince himself of what he's saying a lot more than it sounds like that's something he actually believes, the gym scene he's stressed because he lied to Eddie, it's all at least Buck doing misguided stuff. I feel like at this point, it is very clear that they put Buck in green for this purpose. If Buck is in green, something is most likely wrong.

So, Buck has a something is wrong color. During season 7, I offered the possibility of the show using maroon with Eddie for a similar purpose. But where Buck is about doing misguided stuff most of the time, Eddie is about lying. In a sense.

Eddie's color palette is very earthy. I don't wanna say green is as much of a staple color for him as red is for Buck, but he is usually in army colors, he does wear his fair share of green, greyish-green stuff, it's enough to make sense to some degree if they use maroon to say something is wrong in a direct parallel of what they do with Buck, just going the other way.

But why the maroon during season 7? He's wearing maroon while daydreaming about an idealized Shannon and during the date with Kim. Both situations involve lying to himself, Buck, or whatever. There's also the maroon when Chris leaves. He's not lying, but to say he's pretending to be okay with the situation because it is what Chris wants is not that much of a stretch.

But, I just noticed this dude is wearing maroon when Lena takes him to the first fight, which triggers something dangerous for him. So now we're talking. We have bad shit happening to him and bad shit being triggered by him while he's in maroon.

It opens up a lot in the possibility of them using red in this way for him in other scenes he's wearing reddish stuff. First date with Ana, the nondate with Vanessa, the 612 talk, and I'm gonna throw in the Carla thing too because I need another screenshot lol

Granted, as long as the show doesn't come right out and say Eddie is gay or Eddie was lying about remembering the shooting, these are just speculation and wishful thinking for the most part, but Eddie is peer pressured into the relationship with Ana and ends up admitting he liked the idea of them more than he liked her, so lying to himself, and the Vanessa one, he just plain doesn't want to be there and is agreeing to lie to Pepa so, it's a stretch but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ the Carla thing, Eddie is at least hiding the Shannon of it all and he was lied to to get there, and while Buck does offer him the answer to a problem that scene, it is a problem he was struggling a lot with and pretending he had it under control. And I will live in a land where Eddie has been aware of his feelings since the shooting and it is lying to Buck about not remembering until the show explicitly proves me wrong, so in my head he is lying to Buck in 612. I'm not nearly as confident on this one as I am with the green and Buck when it comes to the whole show, but at least during s7, they did use it like that, and considering the way he was mostly in black or white during s7, the maroon has to mean something.

Now that we got that out of the way. Why am I telling you all this? It is not just because I think this is yet another way the show makes Buck and Eddie exist as mirrors of each other. It is because of the bachelor party.

Because Buck is in mint green and Eddie is in baby pink.

Buck is absolutely being misguided about what Chim actually wants during this, but I have no idea what Eddie would be lying about though. The interesting thing is that Buck loses the green and Eddie has the darker pink quite literally ripped out of him. Which is an interesting choice all things considered. And they get back to it once we find out Chim is missing.

This is pure speculation that even made me write a fic (self-promo if you feel like reading a confrontation about them almost kissing at the party), but the thing is, everyone involved in this damn show talked too much about this bachelor party for it to be a minute long montage with no lasting consequences and me to feel satisfied with it (rip karaoke scene you will always be wanted). Especially considering with the way we know the episode was actually 2 episodes long and they had to trim everything down (the fact that they tried to shove 18 episodes worth of plot into 10 is gonna make me mad forever, it was a reduced season, make a reduced season) and the ideal world madney's wedding would've been the 2 episode event it deserved to be and we would've gotten more. Do I think the show wanted something to actually happen between them, like a full-blown kiss? No. Do I think a "we are drunk and getting too close" situation was completely plausible? Yes. I mean, Buck was practically pulling Eddie to his lap. And it's not like this is something that can't come back to if they feel like it. Sudden triggers making them remember shit is a perfectly acceptable way to add some tension, push some realizations.

I don't know why, but Buck wearing green there will forever bother me. And with the added layer of Eddie and the maroon, I feel like there has to have a point for that particular costume besides making me want to make The Fairly OddParents jokes.

If we wanna go full conspiracy theory, considering the way the early renewal changed the way they dealt with 7b, I wouldn't be surprised if that party was going to trigger something and they decided against it. We'll never know unless they come back to it, but, nice to think about.

As always, if you read this, I love you.

Other color metas if you like my brand of crazy: blue and green masterpost, red and blue post, blue and yellow theory part one and part two.

[iinryer]

i made a post about s7 and s4 parallels… so obviously we have to do a s8 and s5 spreadsheet too :)

i’ll update this post as i update my list!

[ID under the cut for easier legibility than alt]

DISCLAIMER: this is for FUN. please don’t take this as anything other than me goofing around <3

—

[a three column spreadsheet with the labels "PLOT POINT", "SEASON 5", and "SEASON 8"]

An opening emergency that has Athena confronting something traumatic from her past and dealing with someone she arrested years ago, culminating in gunshots in a parking garage (?) with Bobby there (an antagonist gets their dick obliterated somewhere in this plot)

- S5: Jeffrey Hudson

- S8: Dennis Jenkins

Creatures are loose in LA where they are not supposed to be, and causing havoc

- S5: Zoo animals

- S8: Bees

Buck, Eddie, & Chris scene in the Diaz house where someone with the initials TK (that Buck met in relation to a helicopter, who kissed Buck in his kitchen after Eddie got hurt and then had to leave) who Buck is now dating is a guest. Eddie is having a bad time

- S5: Eddie cooks dinner, Taylor is a guest

- S8: Eddie throws a Zoom birthday party, Tommy is a guest

Hen and Eddie treat a cheerleader who gets hurt in an episode 4 with the word "home" in the title

- S5: 504 Home and Away

- S8: 804 No Place Like Home

The 118 team is fractured due to core team members leaving

- S5: Chim leaves, Eddie leaves, the 118 feels off

- Bobby is still out, the 118 under Gerrard feels wrong

A family member of the 118 has left the state to heal

- S5: Maddie runs to Boston

- S8: Chris is still in El Paso

Antagonist on the 118

- S5: Jonah

- S8: Gerrard

Characters from air control make an appearance due to a plane-related system failure

- S5: Blackout opening emergency causes air control to lose contact with a plane. 118 called in for panic/heart attacks

- S8: Plane collision opening emergency has air control on call helping Athena and Jem land the plane

People helping each other in the opening emergency with assistance from dispatch

- S5: Neighborhood getting power to the ventilator

- S8: Passengers on the flight keeping each other alive

The cause of the opening emergency disappears and isn't addressed or followed up on

- S5: The hacker group goes dark and is never identified

- S8: The bees? fly away?

Eddie connects with a father he meets because of a call, goes beyond the job description to try to help him do something good for his son

- S5: Mitchell and his son

- S8: The cheerleader and his dad

Discussions of postpartum and Madney parenthood

- S5: Jee

- S8: New Han baby

Buck asks his partner to move in after he has a strong emotional reaction and is battling over revealing something to them

- S5: Taylor

- S8: Tommy

Buck's relationship with someone who has the initialsTK who he met in relation to a helicopter and kissed him in his kitchen after Eddie got injured, ends while in Buck's loft

- S5: Taylor

- S8: Tommy

Eddie goes to someone for help after a period of being miserable and not letting himself heal

- S5: Therapy

- S8: Confession

Eddie lets himself feel joy

- S5: Returning to firefighting

- S8: Dancing for the sake of dancing

Eddie decides to leave the 118 after a period of internal turmoil in an effort to do right by Chris without consulting anyone in his support system in the midseason cliffhanger

- S5: Quitting Firefighting

- S8: Going to Texas

Unaddressed callbacks to previous NDEs

- S5: Man shot and buried alive, Buck and Eddie held at gunpoint

- S8: Hotshots stunt double hanging from the ladder, kid in a well

A parent is heartbroken about missing their kid's big milestones

- S5: Maddie and Jee

- S8: Eddie and Chris

[thecatspasta]

@changella404 because I know Og!Elias is your son

i cant explain it but the way tma fans treat original elias smoking weed makes me feel mildly unsafe in this community as someone who struggles w addiction 😭

[lostwords-found]

Okay. Okay, there's a bunch of wildly speculative stuff that I can't quite pin down right now, so for now I'm going to stick with a couple definite points and just a tiny bit of the speculation:

Point 1: The case from TMAGP 4 is dated November 19, 1831, according to its case number. That's only two days before the letter in MAG 127, from Jonathan Fanshawe to Jonah Magnus, that detailed how Albrecht Von Closen died.

Which is interesting not just because of the dates, but because how Albrecht died seems REALLY FUCKING SIMILAR to what we know about what happened to Red Canary. Albrecht took a bunch of books from the Württemberg tomb. He went wildly off the rails. And when he tried to return what he had taken:

"Do I need to tell you what I found, Jonah? Do I need to detail what covered his organs, his bones, the inside of his skin? What clustered together in their dozens, and all turned as one to focus on me as I opened his chest, their pupils constricting in the light, with irises of every hue and color?" (MAG 127)

Point 2: As I said over here, TMAGP 3's case is dated very close to when Anya Villette crossed between realities at Hilltop Road. They're only about three weeks apart, which seems pretty close for coincidence considering Anya's the only character we see definitely make that crossing at any point in TMA. The timing gets closer if you recall that Anya landed in TMA's world two weeks before she went to Hilltop Road in hers.

The tiny bit of speculation that I'm posting for now in a desperate attempt to conserve my sanity:

There's all this emotional/thematic resonance between the case files each voice has read and the characters they each appear to be linked to (if not to be outright), and I've been pretty swept up in that. And still am, won't lie! But I'm starting to suspect that they (or whatever is behind them) are actually searching, very deliberately, for something else entirely, and using potentially significant touchpoints from TMA's world as starting places. And that the cases we're actually hearing, and many of the thematic parallels they contain, may be only tangential to that.

[magpod-confessions]

I feel like the way some of the fandom treats Jon is unfair and tbh borderline ableist. It's not his fault that he got hooked on statements by Elias/Jonah, it's very clear that he was being manipulated into it from the beginning. And even once he starts having to take live statements, he doesn't want to have to! He canonically hates that he has to do that to people for sustenance, but that compulsion isn't within his control.

Like c'mon. It's very heavily implied that he becomes genuinely suicidal because of his self-loathing around this, and how the other people around him are treating him like a monster and demanding he "just control" something that he isn't actually able to. Which isn't to say that Basira/Melanie/Georgie/s5!Martin etc. don't have the right to feel that way/that their responses aren't understandable, but they still aren't fair to Jon.

Jon's existence such as it is might not be fair, because his presence does harm others unintentionally. But sometimes that's how things are, and it's equally if not more unfair for the others to act like he's just a monster who should be put down and is selfish for continuing to want to live and be healthy.

Honestly, it sort of feels like some of the fandom has ignored/forgotten that the situation Jon is in isn't unique to a horror story, and in fact has many parallels in real life (whether that be addiction, mental disorder/disability, trauma, etc.) and that to take the view of "well he should've just Not Done That Stuff, skill issue, anyways you can't blame the others for how they treated him" is not exactly going to make actual people who are/have been in situations like that feel welcome in fandom spaces.

🗣️ (but no pressure)

I yea. Agree! I feel you can definitely have a discussion abt how much control Jon has over his actions, but at the end of the day, Jon has been manipulated to hell and back. But I also feel that a lot of it comes from a place of 'If I was in his situation I wouldnt do that' which has some victim blaming undertones, but also hes a fictional character in a fictional setting, which definitely influences how ppl talk abt him. If someone irl talked abt being abused and manipulated, along with having their addiction/disability taken advantage of, even if that same person would go on and on abt how 'The persons actually fine and its my fault' ppl likely would be very kind and take the situation very srsly, which isnt the same kind of reaction ppl have towards Jon, due to him being a fictional character - rosette

yeah i. heavily agree with this too anon. im way too tired to put any true thought into this like rosette did but yeah. people really dont take jons situation serious, and this extends to other characters in the series as well. the fandom doesn't often think further about avatars past 'haha they have to serve a dread power and they cant do anything about it' . - deceit

[the-voldsoy]

Parallels/references/a couple theories about TMAGP EP1:

grouped in order of actual theories, vague things i noticed, and even vaguer comments! (using the same terminology as in TMA for ease)

HEAVY Spoilers !!

Stronger:

“Colin, mate, you know you’re never getting out of here” +won't leave until they figure out the errors “Or they finally kill me” → couldn't quit the Archives because they thought they just wanted to understand and know (but later found out they could only get out by dying or blinding)

Lena talks about cake → Mr Spider doesn't like cake + Elias seemed to love the stuff

pub called The Seward -> Peter Lukas vibes?

“There has to be a way to do this online” → haha ! you wish. (AKA supernatural interferes with internet so it cant be dont online)

“There's this box for a "Response 121" on the form.” → MAG121 is the episode Jon is woken from his coma/brought back to life by Oliver Banks

Talk about how there used to be a separate “Response” department → Elias tells Jon its their job to watch, not interfere (iirc)

Old as shit computer → old as shit tape recorders

AKA: the computer seems to be the only thing that can handle the supernatural

“ "Dolls comma watching" or "Dolls comma human skin" “ → violently Stranger and possibly Eye, has me in mind of MAG24 (the one the Calliope is first mentioned in, where the boyfriend is turned into a doll iirc) 

Barely understandable, long as shit file names →barely understandable, long as shit files names by Gertrude 

[in response to where the files go] “some long dead database that no one will ever look at or care about” → the Archives were unmanaged, decrepit and barely used by anyone outside of them

Work during the night - no sun, cut off from outside world → worked in a basement - no sun, cut off from outside world

Martin (and later Jon) taking the statements → did the same in TMA but in reverse (although I’d love to know if there's any reason behind them being called Chester and Norris, besides what's stated?)

Haha Martin and Jon (and Jonah) are now part of the World Wide Web → shit now they're part of the Web (just like with the tape recorders !!)

Someone talks about how they're sorry, they should've listened, couldn't face not hearing him again → martin @ jon and vice versa

Stranger statement with hints of the Dark → first TMA statement was a Stranger in the dark, and it does put me in mind of the Anglerfish tbh

Sorting system for the statements (although there's is a Lot more detailed and v different) → Smirke’s Fourteen

Gwen openly does not like Lena → literally anyone @ Elias

Asked if they were tricked into working here → well, we know the Archives and Elias

“The awful, terrible thing that landed you here?” → most of the Archives (excluding Sasha and maybe Martin) had something that made them Marked, that mostly led to them working there

Someone who's into spelunking listed the Institute as “cleared” → who could that be (if we know them at all)? Buried avatar, i'd guess, but we don't really know any of them

Photos of the Institute don't show up → photos of the supernatural don't work

The Institute was “weird”, made the subject paranoid → lingering Eye

Fire twenty years ago that burned the Institute → Like the fire at Hilltop Road? Or like that time Gertrude tried to burn down the Institute?

Third floor was the most burned → assuming that's the top floor (and correct me if i'm wrong), wasn’t Jonah in (and later killed) on the top floor?

“offices like little cells” → employees were certainly trapped ! also Millbank Prison

Worried non-existent doors were going to slam shut → the Distortion

Weren’t any papers → left behind before the Institute came to this Somewhere Else (assuming it's the same Institute)? (we need an actual name for the original universe and this Somewhere Else)

Suspicious stains on some floors → my darling, that is blood ! or possibly squished worms, or ink. or possibly something Else

“an old wooden thing with a bunch of similar symbols on” → genuinely unsure what this could be

Strange symbols → For all the Fears, or just the Eye, i wonder? I think i remember them saying something about an Eye symbol at this point, but now i can't find where

“you get a job, I get a fresh victim. It’s all in your contract.” → Elias @ his employees

 “To new beginnings, with old friends” → to a new beginning, with our old friends Jon, Martin and Jimmy Magma :)

“You’re not as clever as you think you are. You think you've got us all fooled, that no-one knows you're listening, But I do. I know. I’m going to find you and then…” → hi what did he mean by this

They (jon, martin & jonah) are Watching and Listening and following through technology→ just like Elias (Panopticon vibes tbh) and Sergey Ushanka

Vaguer (idk if theres anyhting here, but wanted to include it anyway):

Alice loves coffee -> Martin loved tea

Meeting in a cemetery → Sasha with Michael pre-prentiss attack, Naomi Herne 

Not wanting to stay at home because it's full of memories → Jon moving with Georgie, Martin moving to the Archives

Gwen Bouchard wants Lena’s job → Bouchard (appeared to) climb the job ladder quicker than he should have

Heh bug list → corruption

 “You don’t seem like the usual hopeless wasters Lena hires” “The awful, terrible thing that landed you here?” → okayy no need to be rude. But anyways the OG Archives crew were actually pretty disconnected from the rest of the world +were barely there by choice?

“freight cars near Brighton” → hey where did Melanie get her first Slaughter mark ?

“it’s not too awkward working with an ex?” → Georgie and Jon?

FR3-d1 -> i feel like there's something there, but i cannot figure it out

Just words that made me irrationally scared:

Stranger(‘s)

Distortion

Opposites:

Starts with a party for someone leaving → couldn't quit the archives

“ …you are perfectly within your rights to resign. No one is forcing you to stay here.”

please put any opinions/additions in the tags !!

[klm-zoflorr]

Someone on reddit pointed out Jonah's last words "Good luck" are the same as the last words of the entire podcast, Basira's "Good luck". And oh my god I am feeling unwell about this. Like, the parallels with having the main villain's send off be the same as the podcast? Hooooly shit that is incredible. What a conclusion. This is so simple but such efficient dialogue.

Because the words aren't said with the same meaning, not at all. Jonah says them with the hope his Archivist can achieve what he didn't, immortality. They remade the world together and so he cares about what happens to him, somewhat. He's going to die and so he wishes for the last person he cares about to find what he wants. But it's a selfish wish, he doesn't wish for the world to be fixed, merely for Jon to achieve his goal. Not necessarily his goal actually, either starving the fears out or taking his place as the Pupil and be corrupted by the absolute power of it. It's all the same, it will all be something Jon chooses.

Basira's send off are selfless well wishes, to anyone who might be listening. Hope that they haven't ruined too utterly whatever world they sent the fears into. It's a way to say sorry, we knew what we were doing but still it's not fair, I wish there had been a better solution. It's not the same intent, but the juxtaposition of the two lines rhymes so well

[lights-at-night]

did anyone else pick up on how many of the cases weren't from the victim's point of view? it's happened 3 times so far (4 if you count daria? she's complicated) out of seven cases. tma in comparison has 130 out of 154 statements (i am only counting s1-4 because s5 messes with format) (if the numbers are a bit funky please note that i hand counted them so i apologise for that). of course, we only have six episodes of protocol, but there is clearly a difference and i can still make a post out of it.

maybe it's because we aren't only getting stories from the survivors now, as other people have mentioned

but also, those accounts from the perpetrator remind me somewhat of statements from avatars. needles' poetic, ominous manner of speech sounded similar to statements like jane prentiss, manuela dominguez, etc. (side note: needles was very corruption in my opinion. calling the stabbing/other violent actions an act of affection was definitely reminiscent of jane and the hive, just saying). others have pointed the parallels between jonah magnus and the violin guy, but i'll do it again: guy obtains much power via acts of violence, and despite knowing it hurts people this guy continues to see the skill and power with a cost as a blessing, keeps the origin of the power secret and passes it onto another person, who they tell the origin of the power to and bestow the power upon this other person, who did not ask for this. samuel webber's contentment with his new form while retaining an underlying sense of fear is comparable to avatars who love and fear their entity in equal measure.

as well as this, these cases seem more directly aligned with tma entities. magp 4 is extremely slaughter, and resembles mag 42 (grifter's bone). magp 3 is corruption, and mag 6 is also corruption in my opinion (i think people agree with me on that?).

i'm sorry i haven't planned this out i just noticed something and spent an hour typing on my phone about it. tell me your thoughts in the tags, i'd love to see someone make an actual theory about this!

[annabelle--cane]

hmm okay to round up some current disparate tmagp thoughts into one place:

-> the fear taxonomy: I'm not quite sure where I sit on the desires theory currently, but I think it's worth noting that while both of our case subjects from the first episode were explicitly afraid of the spooky things happening to them, none of the rest have been, and I think it's really interesting that tom the horror blogger's whole problem was that he was so desensitized to fear it made him foolhardy (the exact thing our lovely ms georgina barker overcompensated so hard to avoid). yes, you could pick probably any archives statement and try to frame it around a desire instead of a fear because that's how character motivations work, but I don't think it's wrong to point out that since episode two all of our subjects have been remarkably chill about the Horrors happening to them. I'm not totally onboard with the desires at time of writing, I think there a few details that don't quite line up with that idea, but I'm still keeping a pin in the theory.

I also don't think it's wrong to point out that things like "music so hauntingly beautiful it makes a crowd tear itself to bloody pieces" and "paranoia and eye-related gore popping up in conjunction to the magnus institute" are familiar scenarios and seem to match up to the entities as we know them. those are very specific motifs connected to very specific types of Horrors and I think saying it's random coincidence that we're seeing them again is a bit of a weird take.

-> norris, chester, and augustus. in-universe, these voices appeared out of nowhere about a year ago, and one of the central mysteries set up so far is "what the hell is up with all this weird tech?", I think it is a perfectly reasonable assumption to think these voices are part of the mystery and not just an excuse to get jonny and alex's voices in the show. if that were the case, why would there be a third voice? yes, this podcast is meant to be comprehensible to new listeners, but I don't think that rules out any direct ties to archives, I think part of the function of having fresh protagonists who don't know anything about the events of archives is that, if the audience needs to learn anything about the first show, they can learn it along with a viewer-surrogate character.

personally, I think it very unlikely that the voices are literally jon, martin, and jonah's actual consciousnesses trapped in computers, I think those characters' stories are done and there's something funkier happening here (neither them nor not them but a secret third thing, yknow), but dismissing any idea that the voices are related to the characters, again, feels like a weird take.

-> gwen bouchard. honestly I feel like the way the production team have treated gwen's connection to elias vs the way some fans have come at is kind of illustrative. I've seen a couple of groups of fans get weirdly smug about the idea that we don't know gwen is related to elias, her name could just be a red herring, meanwhile on the tmagp post-launch stream everyone there took it as obvious that gwen is a bouchard and thus related to elias. not everything is red herrings, guys. it would be an extremely weird writing move to set up a bunch of stuff with clear links and parallels to archives and have it all be meaningless.

[automatonwithautonomy]

in very broad terms, tea is generally a comfort drink; something you make to calm someone down. coffee is more of a productive thing - caffeine to keep you going, awake and working.

i don't really know where i'm going with this. but it's an interesting contrast. there is already evidence pointing towards the oiar being far more concerned for it's employees than the institute ever was - at the very least, it has protocols (lol) to minimize the danger they're in, instead of jonah's actively encouraging entities to come and get his archivist. but it's also that the institute had... almost the illusion of prestige? like. it really didn't actually have any. but it had departments and equipment and funding - jonah was at least playing at academia; as opposed to the oiar. buried under mountains of red tape and paperwork, working the night shift, terminally underfunded, with apparently the ability to quit...

fuck this got long. anyway. uh again i dont have many coherant thoughts but... parallels!! contrasts!! tea and coffee!!!!

[miyuskye]

Things Jon does in the last episodes of TMA S4:

1. Finds Elias, and he's distantly aware of having being pulled to him. He still asks him and Elias answers, because it's apparently their kink to do this Q&A session even if they're both all-knowledgeable beings.

2. In this push-and-pull game, Jon tries to ask what the Panopticon is, and Elias doesn't answer, so Jon Knows the answer. The audience wonders why they can't get a room like everyone else. Elias asks if he likes it and Jon says yes. Everything's okay.

3. Jon remembers he has a friend in need of saving, that's the reason he's here. He tries to get Elias' approval for going to save Martin, which Elias doesn't give him immediately. They can't be normal for a moment, so Jon has to earn it.

4. Jon finally obtains Elias' approval which is something also Elias craves because in his pet project he needs the pet's agency to be his own. Again, normalcy doesn't suit the two freaks. Also they get off other people's fear but when there aren't other people they have to do with their own fears. Weirdos (lovingly)

5. Jon compels Peter to tell his story. That's good, he needs to eat after entering the Lonely domain. And where does he lose it? When Peter doesn't tell him why he's Elias' prize. Okay, so the man he's been kind of admiring for years (even when he finds out that he's a murderer) has been waging him as a prize. Cool, he manages to stay calm, I wouldn't have honestly.

6. He offs Peter because he won't tell him anything more about Elias. Fair game, he should know by now how his little kinky game with his boss-slash-Eldritch mentor goes.

7. I want to make clear that Jon finishes Peter because he's not answering Jon's question about him being Elias' prize, and if this post is very shipping-based this fact is undoubtedly canon. He doesn't end Peter because he said something bad about his friends, or Martin, he does it because he won't tell him why he's Elias' prize. Be it because he's thirsty for knowledge due to the Beholding or for any other reason, those are facts. He probably would have done it anyway, though seeing how he behaves in S5 I'm not so sure. Anyhow, he's sulking when he doesn't get his answers, fair, and suddenly remembers he's here to save someone.

This has a parallel to another person being trapped and dying in the Lonely domain.

Jonah also had a friend he cared for trapped in the Lonely and did not save him, because he had to Know. Jon saves Martin at the end, but the parallel between them, the indissoluble connection between them strengthening even more.

HOW DO I STOP THINKING ABOUT THEM EVERY WAKING MOMENT??? AAAAA

[thisbuildinghasfeelings]

ANNE.

Me and @she-walked-away have been talking and we have a new theory for 5x07 and 5x08. (Kaitlyn had the idea first) So Enzo and Jonah visit for TK's 30th birthday party, except that TK's long lost best friend from New York, Sophia, tags along too. Maybe she also had addiction issues in the past, like TK, maybe she didn't. But she came along because she wants to ask TK to be a sperm donor! So the "person from TK's past" isn't Enzo, it's Sophia.

👀

This is supported by her being listed as being in both episodes and the same ones as Enzo and also that she's a bit young to be Enzo's wife/girlfriend. (but who knows)

Can't wait for your very normal reaction to this theory.

Ooh, very interesting!! I think this is a plausible theory...I would need a couple things explained, but the show could probably do that. I know Kaitlyn (and me too lol) is desperately trying to come up with some kind of theory that fits but doesn't result in TK and Carlos ending up with Jonah, and this is a good one!

The fact that this Sofia is listed as appearing in the same episodes as Enzo does strongly hint toward there being some connection between them (unless there's just some other storyline that she's part of in the same episodes running parallel to the Enzo storyline). She is a bit young to be Enzo's wife/girlfriend. Not impossible, but it would be quite an age gap since the guy playing Enzo is 57 and the woman playing Sofia seems to be in her early 30s. She IS close to TK's age, so I think it could make sense that she's an old friend of his.

When it comes to this theory, I would have 2 main questions. First, how is Sofia close enough to Enzo to tag along with him from New York to Texas? I suppose if TK and Sofia were really close in the past, Enzo might have ended up knowing her well. Maybe Sofia spent a lot of time at Gwyn's (did Enzo live with Gwyn? Even if he didn't, he probably would have been there a lot). Maybe Enzo was even like a father figure to Sofia. Maybe they stayed in touch after TK moved to Austin. It's something that could be explained.

Second, why does Sofia want TK's sperm bad enough to travel so far and show up presumably unannounced? Seems like a really awkward situation to put herself in! Doesn't she know any men she can ask in New York? Maybe not. Maybe she had this strong connection with TK and that's why she wants to choose him...but if that's the case, wouldn't she have been in contact with him or still been in his life in some way? (But then again, wouldn't TK have been in contact with Enzo and Jonah?) I think the show could probably get us to the point where I could suspend my disbelief enough to accept this. It does seem like the kind of dramatic and outlandish sort of thing Lone Star would do!

Another consideration is that OG did a sperm donor storyline just two seasons ago. Does this matter? Maybe not. Particularly if it was handled differently enough.

Also, it feels similar to the Iris storyline last season. A long-lost female best friend coming back to shake things up in TK and Carlos' relationship. However, I don't think this would necessarily be a point against the theory. Lone Star loves its parallels!

Overall, a very intriguing theory! I assume the result of something like this would be to get TK and Carlos talking about having kids themselves, which is something I would personally love to see--particularly if it did not result in their kid being Jonah!!